Dearest
by Eirian Erisdar
Summary: Anakin finds a letter for Satine amongst Obi-Wan's things a week after Rako Hardeen seemingly shoots Obi-Wan through the chest. Obitine. Set a few days after Obi-Wan's funeral, when Anakin is still unaware that Obi-Wan is still alive. Oneshot.


**A/N:** Cross-posted on tumblr. Unashamedly Obitine. Rako Hardeen arc remains prime angst material.

* * *

 ** _Dearest_**

Eirian Erisdar

* * *

Anakin finds the letter a week after Rako Hardeen puts a blaster bolt through Obi-Wan Kenobi's chest.

With the way the letter was sequestered away, in all likelihood it should never have been found; only reason Anakin saw it at all was that as he punched the durasteel wall of his quarters upon the Resolute, the envelope of flimsi fluttered down off the little shelf reserved for Obi-Wan's things.

Anakin loosens his mechanical hand and fights against the ache where metal joins bone.

He has very pointedly not looked at the shelf, these past few days. It remains there, however, just in the corner of his vision; constant and close and _there_ , like the image of Obi-Wan crying out in surprised agony as he stumbled over the roof edge, hand clasped to the perfect, circular burn over his heart.

Anakin blinks once.

The cabin is dark and cool, and the starlight beyond the viewport faintly shimmering still.

The shelf is still there, as unassuming in its ordered clutter as it always has been. It is not special, not even now; Anakin has - _had_ \- one of his own in Obi-Wan's cabin on _The Negotiator_ , piled from edge to edge with bits of electrical circuitry and droid parts. Obi-Wan often bemoaned its mess in his otherwise spotless cabin; but there had always been a smile hovering there, half-hidden behind an auburn beard.

At the image, the breath chokes in Anakin's throat. He stoops to pick up the envelope of flimsy simply because he needs to _do_ something; something better than punching the wall with a hand he knows will never break.

The word penned on the envelope front is not Aurebesh. Anakin blinks blurred eyes at the sharp-edged ink for a long moment before identifying the letters as somewhat Mandalorian in design; but there are knife-like extensions to the word that render it foreign to him, and echo of an ancient script.

He slides a finger under the adhesive seal and flicks open in the letter. Within is a simple sheet of flimsi, and its aurebesh letters shine firm and clear in the starlight.

 _Dearest Satine,_

 _I leave this letter with Anakin, in the hope that-_

Anakin stumbles. His calves hit a hard edge, and he half-falls back onto his bunk. A gaping cavern in the Force opens up below him, threatens to swallow him whole.

He is holding the letter so tightly the paper crinkles in a starburst of blade-sharp lines from his gloved thumb.

Some distant part of him almost wants to fling it away, but he dashes a sleeve across his eyes, and carries on.

 _Dearest Satine,_

 _I leave this letter with Anakin, in the hope that he may one day pass it on to you. Anakin, I will be placing this letter amongst my belongings in your cabin, because if we're going to be honest with each other, you wouldn't step foot in_ my _cabin even a year after my passing; I know you too well. Read on, if it pleases you. I am dead, so I have nothing more to hide. Satine, forgive me for wishing to share what I say in this letter with him. He my brother, and by extension, I hope, your friend._

 _Satine, I pen this letter a week after your departure to Mandalore. Never in my lifetime did I think I would see you again, and yet the Force loves to make delightful fools of us all. It is wiser than us in that way._

 _This past week has been strange. I recall what transpired in the corridor when Senator Merrick had you at blasterpoint with utter clarity, but with you once more star-systems away, I find myself wondering - illogically - if it actually did occur. When I saw you again I thought that there were enough years between now and then for us to be nothing more than a Jedi and a Duchess; but you were there, and so was I, and then before I even began to realise the surfacing of words that I had left buried so deep I thought I forgot their first awakening, you spoke, and so did I._

 _And, illogically, I now find myself wondering why you waited so long to say them._

 _No, no - that is unfair. I should be wondering why I waited, when I knew the question you did not ask so many years ago - when I knew what I would have said in return._

 _I think you have the right to be angry at me for this, Satine. I knew, but I did not say it. Not when it might have changed something._

 _I never did tell you what the Force told me, when I stood before you on that last day of that year we had together - my extended mission and your fight for peace. When I waited for you to ask, and you waited for me to offer, and we ended up waiting until the thing we were waiting for no longer could come._

 _Satine, I have to tell you this, although you might hate me for it._

 _The Force told me that we could have been happy._

 _I remember that moment with such astonishing detail. You were in your formal receiving-gown, the one embroidered in sea-blue thread, and there was a Mando'a poem woven in the braids on your head. The sun was bleeding its last light of the day across the city, and the variegated glass was casting iridescent shades across your hands and mine, and the long space between them._

 _The Force showed me that there could have been many more such sunsets, watched with my hand in yours; how I would have formal tunics made in sea-green to match your blue, and how I would have griped good-naturedly over it but ceded to your good sense. I could hear your laughter as clearly as though the future you were by my ear. And, faint through the warp and weft of the Force, a child's newborn cry._

 _When I saw this future with you, Satine, I wished for it so dearly. I think I have never since wished for something as much, save for on Naboo, when Master Jinn passed into the Force._

 _But the Force also showed me another path - one which would bring balance to the galaxy in such a way that a life on Mandalore could not. It did not show me how this would be done, or what part I would play in it - but it spoke of joy in suffering, and, though I could not, and still do not fully understand, love._

 _So when I did not speak, Satine, I did so out of love._

 _I am sorry._

 _I write this letter expecting you only to read it after my death; as it is, I am also sorry for causing you grief. Do not mourn me, Satine. There is joy yet._

 _But, dearest, never doubt that I would have left the Order if you had said the word. And even now, if the war was over, and Ahsoka knighted, and you asked - I think I would have done the same. Forgive me for leaving you before I could._

 _Ever yours,_

 _Ben_

Anakin lowers the letter, and swallows against the tears. When this proves insufficient, he swipes angrily at them with his gauntleted arm.

"Blast it," he croaks into the crook of his elbow.

He sits there for a long, long while.

He needs-

He needs Padmé.

Anakin slides the letter back in the envelope, and returns it to its spot on the shelf. The spiky letters on the front gleam at him in the half-light; letters that he finally realises must spell out _Satine._

Obi-Wan wrote to give it to her.

Anakin should.

But...not yet.

He needs to not- not feel like _this_ , whatever this mix of confusion, anger, and a lot else is, before he can do so.

Two weeks later, the man with Rako Hardeen's face and voice whispers " _Anakin, don't follow me,"_ into Anakin's ear as Anakin writhes in the dirt, rage and _need_ for vengeance melting into shock, and when he wakes, he is so, so furious that he wonders why the world is not screaming with him.

When Obi-Wan saunters into Anakin's quarters on the Resolute much, much later, wearing his own face and voice again, the first thing he does is casually remark, "I see you weren't in a hurry to clear my shelf."

Anakin watches how Obi-Wan's eyes flick over the corner of the envelope and soften minutely in relief to find it still there, lost amongst the holovolumes and packets of tea.

"I knew you'd come back," Anakin says instead, and forces a grin until he almost believes it himself.

Almost.

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 **End**

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I've always wanted to write an Obitine love letter. Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who favourites and reviews, as always. You're all stars.


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